


Atone

by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I don't think this is going to happpen, Season 6 canon divergence, Started writing, bon appetite, but I'm working through some stuff, had a breakdown, hurt!clarke, so to quote GBBO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-02-10 01:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky/pseuds/ChasetheWindTouchtheSky
Summary: When they make it to the new planet, Clarke tells herself it’s a fresh start. But she feels so separated from everyone, as if she’s a few seconds behind everyone else. When the idea of sending a search party out to explore how dangerous the new planet is, is suggested, Clarke sneaks out to explore herself to save people from any danger.The trek takes a turn for the worse when she discovers the planet isn’t as friendly as they had hoped. A quick scouting mission turns into a fight for survival as Clarke tries to work through what she’s done – even if it means giving her life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who’s back on her bullshit?
> 
> Please note that while I still haven’t seen the leaked episodes, I have seen the trailer and it’s kinda disregarding that a little. Also, I would like to state for the record, I don’t think Clarke needs to atone for everything, I think she thinks she does.
> 
> I’ve been really struggling with writing lately, as well as some mental health things, and it all twisted in a very intense session of hating my writing for a while. (wow, that got personal, sorry) I couldn’t even look at a document, let alone write. 
> 
> Then I got the idea of channeling that into a story, which is what this ended up being. It’s a little bit different than what I usually write, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

ATONE

_By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

Days pass like raindrops.

 

Light, at first. Like she barely notices that it’s happening. A passing thought, like a droplet that falls on your cheek and you think it was something you made up. But as rain does, life… falls.

 

When it fell, Clarke felt it like it was a ghost and then like it was a weight on top of her all at once.

 

It was the tenth day that they landed on the new planet, an otherwise inconsequential day. The kind of day that Clarke fantasized about for years, an inconsequential sort of day that would be nothing more than the passing of time. Clarke is sitting by herself on a rock, picking absently at the nuts in her hand as people flit around. They’re still getting used to the new planet, to the new climate, they’re still getting used to each other. Who they are now.

 

Which is why Clarke finds herself alone, perched on a rock, watching the world continue on without her. Everything feels slightly muffled, slightly off. Like she’s existing about five seconds behind everything else, not able to catch up. That there’s a world five seconds ahead of her, that’s slightly different. It looks the same, it moves the same, it simply feels different.

 

Five seconds behind.

 

That’s what Clarke is. Five seconds behind.

 

“Clarke!” Someone calls and she whirls around. People moved in a haze. Her mom is around, her hands out in front of her and quaking. Clarke doesn’t quite recognize her mother, but perhaps none of them are really recognizable at this point. She brought her mother back from the verge of death, but perhaps death took pieces of her. Perhaps death took pieces of all of them.

 

Death was supposed to be Clarke’s friend. Her companion. Her partner that she walked side-by-side with, until one day he would lead her away from the pain of the world. But that’s not how it went. She was the _Commander_ of Death. She outranked him. She told him what to do.

 

So Death took things from her. Pieces of herself, pieces of her life, pieces of her family. It took pieces so small that she didn’t notice it at first. Then it got bolder. More resolute. It started taking whole pieces. Monty. Wells. Her father. It was as if they were playing chess and one by one, the pieces were being taken. She maneuvered as the Queen, trying to keep the pieces alive. To protect the pieces. To protect the King.

 

Bellamy waves as he calls her name again.

 

Clarke moves, five seconds behind, and people pass her, five seconds ahead. When she reaches him, there’s a part of her that wants to keep that distance. It’s easier to pull away, not drag people in to the blackhole game that she and Death were playing.

 

Bellamy smiles easily, something that she never saw him do before their separation. Clarke wonders absently how it happened. How the sharpness chipped away. “People are getting antsy,” Bellamy states, crossing his arms and settling next to her. “They want to explore, but it’s not safe. I think you and I both know that wandering on a new planet isn’t the best idea.”

 

Clarke thinks of her first expedition on earth, starting with hope and ending with a spear in Jasper’s gut. “Probably not,” she agrees. “But we can’t just tell them to stay here. What will we do? We have to explore more than simply outside the ship’s door.”

 

“I was thinking an expedition party. Something small, but people we trust that are used to reacting.”

 

Clarke smirks at that. “By that, you mean you want someone we know. No one from Eligius.”

 

“What do they know?” Bellamy asks with a chuckle. “They’ve been in cryosleep for years, and then space before that. They don’t know survival like we do. We spent years studying before we were sent to the ground. They may have existed on earth before us, but they didn’t learn how to survive.”

 

“Everyone here is a survivor, Bellamy.” Clarke says, her words soft. “Whether you learned the experience from a book or from the end of the world.”

 

“I know,” he agrees.

 

The two of them face where the ship is landed, people milling about. Clarke still feels separated from them, separated from Bellamy even. She’s tired in a way she hasn’t felt in a while, her shoulders sagging and mind weary. “I can’t believe Monty did it,” Bellamy breathes as they look out together. He shifts toward her, so close that his arm rests next to hers. “Found us another planet.”

 

“We better do right by him, then.”

 

“We will.” Bellamy responds with a smile. “You and I will make sure of it. Together.”

 

Except Clarke doesn’t answer.

 

Because they’re not together. Not anymore at least. You can’t be five seconds behind and be together with the world. When Clarke doesn’t answer, Bellamy looks to where she’s standing curiously. “You alright?” He asks, and Clarke wishes he wouldn’t.

 

“I’m fine.” She responds as quickly and empty as possible.

 

“You don’t seem fine. You seem… quiet.”

 

“I’ve always been quiet.” Clarke states. She thinks absently that everyone here are their own stars. They’re starts that have been battered around their corners of the universe. Stars that are learning to shine again. Stars learning to create their own universe. Monty had collected them and moved them to a safe place, so they could create another galaxy.

 

Bellamy raises an eyebrow. “You are a lot of things, Clarke, but I would never describe you as quiet.”

 

“I’ve only spoken up when I’ve thought that there’s something to say.” Clarke says, making sure not to look at him. “And I don’t have anything to say.”

 

“How is that possible?” Bellamy whispers.

 

 _That’s_ what gets her to look at him. “What?”

 

The way Bellamy looks at her, it makes her feel like she’s caught up. That she’s present – that she’s no longer behind. He looks at her that makes her feel like when she saw a flower for the first time. Bright and colorful, delicate and not necessary. But beautiful.

 

“How could you not have anything to say?”

 

Clarke knows that they’re no longer talking about the state of the world. They’re talking about something they never used to talk about. Something they spent years pretending didn’t exist. But Bellamy is bringing it up now, when Clarke is no longer who she once was.

 

She opens her mouth, but finds that word do not come to her. Everything she wants to say, she doesn’t have the right to do so. Bellamy deserves more than a ghost and a ghost is all that she is.

 

Then someone calls his name and with one last look, he leaves her, back to her own world.

 

***

 

When someone suggests an expedition party formally, Clarke can’t help but press her back against a wall and watch everyone interact. She sees the fear in some eyes – excitement in others. Clarke knows enough about the world to know excitement to a hostile planet is nothing more than foolishness. It’s a recipe to get killed and for tragedy.

 

Death sits next to her, eagerly awaiting his next turn.

 

Clarke tries not to think too much about it. It isn’t until she sees Raven catch Shaw’s eye, then Murphy and Emori’s does something ache in her chest. Everyone has a partner, and hers is Death. He eyes them greedily.

 

“—people with the most time on a planet should go.” Diyoza is saying. “No offense, but you guys spent the majority of your life in a spaceship. We actually existed on the ground.”

 

“And what did we do?” Indra asks darkly. “Disappear?”

 

“You know that’s not what I mean—”

 

“We have the most experience with that sort of thing.” Bellamy’s insisting. “We spent years studying how to survive on planets you’re not familiar with. We are able to adapt—”

 

The conversation goes as well as Clarke expects. People argue, no one is cohesive. Sure, over a hundred years have passed. But to them? It’s been nothing more than a quick nap. A group of people who were warring against one another cannot build a community after a nap.

 

“We should split up and send out teams.” Diyoza states, gesturing as she speaks. “We should—”

 

“Why are you in charge again?” Raven asks, narrowing her eyes. “Last time I checked, you helped destroy the valley.”

 

“I think we can all agree that, it was McCreary who pressed the launch button.” Diyoza says, unperturbed by the hostility. “You were in the room, your memory cannot be that poor. Selective, but not that poor.”

 

Raven tilts her head. “I think we all know none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t taken over the valley in the first place.”

 

“Stop it,” Bellamy snaps, his voice raising. It goes deep in the way that it does when he’s upset, the way that settles in Clarke’s bones and makes her shiver. She hasn’t heard him take command like that in a while. It reminds her of the way things used to be. “We all contributed to it. We all contributed to the death of the valley – to the death of the world. Placing blame isn’t how we’re going to start new.”

 

“Some contributed more than others,” someone mutters and Clarke feels a few gazes fall on her.

 

She’s standing in the corner of the room, back against the wall like a scared animal. She looks pointedly ahead, trying not to make eye contact. It’s one of the small moments Clarke is grateful that she feels so separated from everyone.

 

That’s when she realizes.

 

They were all stars.

 

She is a blackhole.

 

Clarke remembers reading something on the Ark about stars. About black holes. When a star dies, it can have two separate outcomes. It can slowly burn out. Turn into a dead rock. Drift into nothingness into space.

 

There’s another way a star can die.

 

It can turn into a black hole and take everyone down with it.

 

Clarke once was a star. Now she’s dying.

 

What kind of death does she choose?

 

She can feel Death in the room, anxiously awaiting people to volunteer to explore. Volunteer to die. Death controls the board and she is backed in a corner. She sees the pieces that Death has taken from her. The calculated moves that she should’ve seen the pitfalls for. Every move she made – every sacrifice – is right at her feet.

 

Her fault.

 

There’s only one thing someone can do when they’re playing chess with Death and Death is winning.

 

They make a gambit.

 

“No,” someone says beside her.

 

Clarke turns to see Murphy has moved close to where she is, leaning next to her. There’s still enough separation between the two of them to remind Clarke of everything she’s lost. Everything _she_ caused to lose. “Excuse me?” She whispers, not turning toward him.

 

“Don’t even think about it, Clarke,” Murphy says, not looking at her in return. “Don’t do it.”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Yeah, you do.” He says evenly. “You have that look. The ‘I’m about to inject myself with nightblood,’ the ‘I bear it so they don’t have to’ look. You are not doing it.”

 

“I have the most experience in this sort of scenario.” Clarke hisses back. She needs to see the bigger picture. It’s how to play chess. You have to see the bigger picture.

 

“You have experience wandering around on a planet that you know nothing about? Earth doesn’t count, we all studied for that.”

 

“Earth after Praimfaya was a planet I knew nothing about,” Clarke whispers. “Earth after Praimfaya wasn’t the Earth anymore, it was nothing more than a destroyed planet that was trying to repair itself. This planet is nothing more, nothing less. I can scout. There’s no need to send out a big party when people could get hurt—”

 

“So it’s fine if you do.”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“You don’t know that!” Murphy shouts and everyone stops talking and looks in their direction.

 

“Care to share with the rest of the class?” Diyoza asks, lifting an eyebrow at Murphy’s outburst.

 

Murphy grits his teeth before saying, “It’s nothing. Clarke just has a monumentally stupid idea.”

 

“Wouldn’t be her first.” Someone else utters and all it does is steel her resolve.

 

Murphy makes a face. “Oh shut up. Like anyone would be alive right now if it weren’t for her.”

 

It surprises Clarke, Murphy’s comment. He had been staying out of her way, staying with where the rest of those who made it to space were. She finally turns to him, eyes wide. “Shut up,” he mutters, crossing his arms and turning back to the front.

 

“It’s safer this way,” Clarke says quietly. “It’s safer if it’s just me. No one needs to know, no one will even notice—”

 

“Yes, they will.” Murphy says, his words clipped.

 

“No, they won’t and you know it. I’ll just go out for a day. See what I can find. See if there’s anyone—” Clarke takes a breath. “It will be safer if I go by myself. That way people aren’t risking their lives in order to see if there’s anyone else out there. That we don’t lose anyone else—” Clarke closes her eyes when they start to sting, trying to block out whatever she’s feeling. Not when it’s her fault. “Please let me do this.”

 

There’s longing in it. Weight. Loss.

 

Enough to where it takes her breath away.

 

Murphy looks at her. Really _looks_. Looks at her the way that only Bellamy had in recent days. “Clarke, this is idiotic.”

 

“It’s not, though. You know that one person is a lot less risky then sending a whole team. I’m used to this sort of thing. I know what to look out for, I know how to stay alive. Nothing can kill a cockroach, right?” She asks, nudging his shoulder. “Not even the end of the world?”

 

Murphy shakes his head. “We’re on a different planet now, Clarke. We don’t know that.”

 

“ _Please_ Murphy. Let me do this. Let me…” Clarke blinks, finding it hard to see. “Let me… make up.”

 

“For _what_?”

 

“For everything.”

 

“Come on—”

 

“Please don’t tell anyone.” Clarke states, and knows that while she says ‘anyone,’ the subtext is there. The two of them glance at Bellamy, who is getting in a heated discussion with a few members of the previous Wonkru and Eligius members. He’s tall, resolute, strong.

 

“I will not lie for you.”

 

“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you to look the other way.”

 

Murphy makes a face. She can see her request war within him. “I will—”

 

“They will ask you to go. They will ask Emori, Echo, Bellamy. They will ask people you care about to go. Let me do this, Murphy. Please let me do this.”

 

The arguing grows louder as people from different sides hold different opinions. “Enough!” Bellamy bellows over a snipe from one of the Grounders while an Eligius member reaches for a gun at his side. “We are not on this planet to start another war. We will set up camp for the night and reevaluate in the morning!”

 

He says it with enough authority that no one argues with him. The Eligius crew member takes his hand off his gun while the Grounder relaxes his blade. “See?” Clarke says. “No decision was made. I can go tonight. Be back before anyone notices.”

 

Murphy purses his lips. “Fine.” He snaps. “Fine. You have one day. And Clarke, if you die? So help me god, if you die, I’ll never forgive you. I swear to god, I’ll never forgive you if you die. And I’ve forgiven you for a lot of things. But I will not forgive you for this.”

 

Clarke nods. “I haven’t forgiven me for a lot of things, Murphy. This is how I fix them.”

 

She watches everyone. Everyone who survived everything. Every move she made in the game she and Death began to play.

 

“You make me tell that man that I let you leave and you died, I will never forgive you.” Murphy says, pointing at Bellamy. “I watched him lose you once – I watched him try to get over it – and I watched him fail. If you make me make him fall apart again, I will hate you until my dying breath.”

 

“You don’t get it, Murphy.” Clarke says with a humorless smile. “Everyone already hates me to their dying breath. And they’re anxiously awaiting mine.”

 

Before Murphy can retort to that, Clarke moves past him and away from the arguing. She stops by to grab her backpack before she heads out the ship door, the suns high in the sky. However, they’re close together, as if ready to pass.

 

“Going somewhere?”

 

Clarke flinches when Bellamy is at her side, eyeing her backpack. “Just getting settled.”

 

“Yeah, well, it may be a while if no one can agree on anything.”

 

“They will. When the times get tough, people always do.”

 

“Yes, I suppose that’s right.”

 

“You suppose.” Bellamy chuckles. “You won’t even give me that one?”

 

Clarke finds herself smiling a bit. “Fine, you’re right.”

 

“I’m sure that was painful for you.” Bellamy says. “Well, I’m going to go in and see if there’s anything we can use to set up outside. To get used to the climate and such. You want to help?”

 

Clarke hesitates. She knows she can’t, but she still hesitates. “Uh, actually I told someone I’d grab some firewood for the evening. But I’m sure there will always be more to go around.”

 

“Of course. Don’t get to lost.” Bellamy smiles before turning around.

 

Clarke doesn’t even look back at him.

 

Tilting her head up, Clarke looks to where the suns are getting closer. “Try and stop me,” she says to Death.

 

Death doesn’t answer.

 

But it does wait.

 

***

 

The pain starts small. She doesn’t think much of it at first. In fact, she’s so used to living her life with a certain amount of pain that she walks throughout the woods of the forest, ignoring the aching in her chest.

 

She wonders absently if Death has followed her here, as it follows her everywhere. Watching her every move.

 

_I took your father._

_I took your best friend._

_I took your first love._

_I took your second love._

_I took your life._

 

_What more can I take?_

 

“What more do I have to give?” Clarke asks Death, and yet again, Death doesn’t answer.

 

The trees on this planet are beautiful colors. Colors Clarke’s never seen. Colors Clarke wishes she could be painting if she hadn’t already painted a whole other planet with blood.

 

Clarke unshoulders her backpack, pulling out a familiar device that she used to use so many times. A device that seems to have fit in her hand. A device that would calm her down, a device that would make her feel safe.

 

This world is unknown. The world is a question. And Clarke only has one answer.

 

“Hey Bellamy,” Clarke says, speaking into the radio that has been in her backpack since she can remember. It still doesn’t work. It still doesn’t have a response on the other end. But she pushes the button, with no desire of receiving an answer. “I know you can’t hear me, but I’m afraid. I feel like everyone else is moving forward and I’m… I’m drowning in everything I’ve done. I don’t deserve to move forward, I don’t deserve to make up those five second. I-I think I’m the bad guy. In everyone’s story. I think that I’ve been fighting so long that I didn’t realize…”

 

Clarke takes her hand off the button when the weight of what she’s saying takes over.

 

She doesn’t finish.

 

Placing the radio back in her backpack, she moves forward. It’s what she always does when she isn’t sure what else to do. She tucks everything that may stop her down where she can’t reach it and moves forward.

 

A noise trickles from the corner of the woods, as if a warning for the day yet to come. It’s not threatening, nor is it something that she particularly wants to move toward. Instead, she eyes the direction, her instincts telling her she needs to remain clear. It continues, clicking in a way like it’s counting something down. _Tick, tick, tick_. It’s unsettling, like the countdown to something. She watches that part of the woods out of the corner of her eye, as if watching it would make it less terrifying if something came out.

 

The world is so different on this side of the universe. Clarke knew it’d be different – that it would be slightly foreign and off. She wasn’t prepared for quite how off it would be. Since the climates were the same and the world was habitable, she thought that she’d be able to adapt quickly. Everything had a different texture – a different feel – so that she carefully tread in the woods.

 

Then again, it was a small respite.

 

There’s nothing more lonely than feeling the space between yourself and other people.

 

Clarke supposes she deserves it though. The space. She’d done everything she can for survival, but as most things do, survival has a price. Apparently all it cost was her soul. Cheap price to pay, really. There isn’t much more she could give.

 

“If you want to make your move, than just make it!” Clarke calls to Death, who has followed her to this planet. It’s Death’s turn. He took Monty and Harper, Clarke received a planet. It’s Death’s turn. “You are a coward. Would you turn your attention to me? Leave them out of this! Your quarrel is with me!”

 

Clarke feels rather foolish shouting at nothing, but it’s easier than focus on the foreign noises sounding around her.

 

The alone feeling, though?

 

Not foreign at all.

 

***

 

For a new planet, Bellamy is feeling oddly familiar. Everyone’s setting up camp, there’s an excitement in the air. Bellamy feels like for the first time, they genuinely do have an opportunity to be better. _Do_ better than they once have been. With people milling about, he feels like he can breathe. The only thing he’s having a hard time doing is covering the hole where Monty and Harper left, but even there he settles himself knowing they lived their lives as happy and content as they could.

 

And they saved them all.

 

“Heads up!”

 

Bellamy ducks just in time before something flies directly at him. Murphy grins in the distance in that shit-eating way that used to make him want to shoot the man, but now does nothing but inspire a laugh. “Will you watch it?” He calls back.

 

“Damn, I missed.” Murphy yells from the distance. “I was aiming directly for your head.”

 

Bellamy shouldn’t be surprised, but he rolls his eyes anyway. Glancing around the camp, he does what he always did when he felt a little out of control – he counts people. He counts the people he cares about, the people who are left, to make sure they’re all there. He counts and he counts, and then he counts some more.

 

Except on this particular night, he’s coming up short. He’s counting and he doesn’t see someone and there’s a brief flash of worry that seems to go tandem with the moment he met Clarke Griffin.

 

Bellamy’s watched her recede. He’s watched her pull away from everyone. He understands. Bellamy’s not blind, he sees the sneers and side-eyes. He sees the weight get heavier and the people continuing to press down harder. Bellamy sees.

 

What he doesn’t see, right now in this moment, is where she is.

 

Frowning, he walks up to where Madi is, flanked by Gaia and Indra. He tries not to shudder at the new steely way she carries herself – it is something he’ll have to look at and live with for the rest of his life. “Hey Madi,” he says when approaching her. “Have you seen Clarke?”

 

Madi perks up at the sound of her name, and peers around. “No, actually, did she say she was going somewhere?”

 

Bellamy frowns. “She mentioned something about getting firewood, but that was all. I haven’t seen her since.”

 

“She must be around here somewhere,” Indra offers. “You know Clarke, she is a woman of her own calling.”

 

“Oh trust me, I’m painfully aware.”

 

Madi frowns, in a way that belies her age, as she glances around. “I’ll keep an eye out.” She settles on when neither of them see Clarke in the area. “I’ll tell her you’re looking for her.”

 

Bellamy purses his lips. “Clarke won’t be found unless she wants to be.”

 

“Where would she even go?”

 

Bellamy looks past the dark woods, trying to ignore a gnawing feeling in his stomach. “I don’t know.”

 

***

 

“I think somewhere along the way, we forgot what the end goal was.” Clarke says into the radio, mainly because it’s comforting, but also because she needs something to do that will stop her imagination from taking over and causing her to spiral. “I was focused so much on helping the human race survive for so long, that I didn’t even have time to stop. I didn’t have time to think about everything we were doing to survive.”

 

Clarke takes her hand off of the radio. The suns are getting closer and there’s something that stings in her chest, like she’s walked uphill for quite some time, despite the ground being flat. There was a part of her that thought the further she got away from the campsite, the better she may feel. That no longer being surrounded by everyone would make her feel like less of a monster, less like the Commander of Death.

 

It didn’t.

 

Clarke should’ve expected it. She shouldn’t have been so confident that distance would help – it never has. After Mount Weather, she spent months trying to run away from everything she did, but to no avail. You can’t run away from demons.

 

They’re demons. They stay with you like your own shadow, attached to your feet and prepared to cover you in the dark.

 

“I never meant to hurt you,” she says into the radio, her words cracking. “I didn’t want to hurt everyone. Do you know what it’s like? Do you know what it’s like to make decisions when you know, no matter what, someone will get hurt? I-It’s paralyzing, it’s the worst feeling in the world.”

 

Clarke takes a moment to collect herself. It feels as if everything she’s been tamping down has built up in her chest so that it’s about to burst out and it’s like her nerves are on fire. She feels everything, raw and horrifically painful, and there’s nothing around her to ground her back in reality, because nothing seems real.

 

“I sometimes look back at when we first got to the ground and god, I wish that I had come up with a way to make it all make sense – make it all better. Figure out a way to save everyone… even me. But I’m past saving now, aren’t I. I just want to make sure you guys have a chance on this new planet, I just want to make sure that everything I did wasn’t just to light the world on fire and live among the ashes.”

 

There’s a slight twinge in her side, growing as the suns draw closer together. It’s almost hard to see it through the trees, but it almost looks like they’re close enough to touch. Her ears buzz, growing hot that she was always told was a sign someone was talking to her. But this felt mildly different. Something feels off in a way she can’t explain.

 

“Although, am I worth saving at this point?” Clarke asks the radio that never speaks back to her. “Or have I too much blood on my hands?”

 

With every step further into the forest, Clarke loses sight of the trail behind her. It becomes nothing more than a distant memory behind her, Clarke gets lost.

 

She gets lost like she’s only been lost so many times in her life. Lost after Mount Weather. Lost after Praimfaya. Lost under the weight of the path behind her.

 

So Clarke simply… embraces it.

 

***

 

“What are you doing?” Bellamy asks Raven as he sits down at the campsite where his family is at. Raven is fiddling with a radio with the sort of intensity that she always approached things: fierce and focused.

 

She doesn’t respond, which tells Bellamy that she’s really focusing on the task at hand. Fortunately, Shaw tilts his head so he can peer around her. “She’s trying to see if she can make the radio frequency on the planet work, so that when we do start an exploratory party, we’ll be able to talk to each other.”

 

Bellamy nods. “Smart.”

 

“I know.” Raven states, her nimble fingers working over the machine.

 

“I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

 

“I can multitask.”

 

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Clearly.” Someone passes him the evening rations, which he picks at. The radio crackles and something unintelligible plays across.

 

“Woah,” Raven says, holding it out.”

 

“Woah?” Bellamy asks. It’s not often Raven’s surprised and whenever she is, he knows something big is happening. “All I heard was static.”

 

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be doing all the other stuff if we weren’t picking up something.”

 

Shaw leans over from where he’s eating and peers at the device curiously. “You mean someone out there has a radio?”

 

Raven looks up, her face grim. Bellamy gets it – they’ve never been good with newcomers, despite the fact that they were always the ones landing on new planets. “I mean someone has a radio and they’re _using it_.” She states. “There are people out there.”

 

Bellamy sucks in a breath. “Can you get a read on what they’re saying?”

 

Raven opens the back of the radio and fiddles with some things he doesn’t quite understand. It doesn’t really matter, he never had an interest in that sort of thing and knows Raven well enough to be hands off as she continues to work. “There could be people out there,” Raven mutters.

 

“We always knew that was a possibility.” Bellamy says as calmly back as possible. “We knew there was a colony of people who could be living here.”

 

“They could be hostile.”

 

“They could be. But they also could be peaceful. We have to be alert, but not ready to attack.”

 

“Attacking is all we’ve been doing for years,” Emori says quietly next to him. “Everyone here is on edge and ready to fight for their lives. That won’t just go away.”

 

“Of course it won’t,” Bellamy says. “But we’re not going to gain the trust of the people on this planet by attacking them. Do you remember what happened when we landed?”

 

“Yeah, your ship killed an entire village,” Emori grumbles, but there’s no real heat in it.

 

“Bellamy,” Raven says, looking up from the device where her hands grow still. “If there are people here, we need to tell Madi. We need to prepare for every scenario.”

 

“Yeah,” Bellamy sighs. “Ever get sick of preparing?”

 

“Better than being caught off guard,” Shaw says.

 

“Yeah,” Bellamy says to himself. “This is supposed to be different. This is supposed to be…”

 

He trails off, searching the area for her. Bellamy can’t help it, he always needs to find her now that he’s convinced she’s not going to disappear between his fingers again.

 

Except, somehow that’s exactly what she’s done.

 

Clarke is still nowhere to be seen and there’s still that gnawing feeling at the pit of his stomach that he gets when his instincts are begging for him to pay attention. He’s learned that whenever he feels this way, he should listen. And yet now…

 

“Let’s go find Madi,” Bellamy states, standing up, his rations untouched at his side. “We have to—”

 

Except they don’t need to find Madi.

 

Madi is brought to them.

 

“Where’s Abby?” Indra cries, a slight hint of panic in her voice.

 

It’s something that stills him to his very core. Indra isn’t one for fear. Indra stares at fear and ignores it. But right now? Indra sounds _afraid_.

 

And when Bellamy looks down to the figure she’s holding, he feels it too.

 

Madi’s in her arms, hands clamped around her stomach. Black blood is rolling from her nose and ears as she scrunches her face, small noises coming from the child.

 

“What’s happening?” Bellamy cries.

 

“I do not know,” Indra says quickly. “She mentioned something about having a headache and then next thing I knew she was talking about her parents in the valley and—”

 

“There’s no time for this!” Gaia exclaims at her side. “We need to find Abby!”

 

Bellamy nods distantly and the two sprint off. He can’t feel his hands. Ever since the bunker, Bellamy has felt responsible for Madi in a way he can’t explain. He feels worry that he’s only ever felt with the children in his life – Octavia, the younger members of the 100. Bellamy isn’t sure if it’s his place, but he worries nonetheless.

 

Emori jumps up next to him. “What’s wrong with Madi?”

 

“I don’t know, apparently she’s having a bad reaction to something,” he mutters, resisting the urge to sprint after him. “I don’t understand what it could be. Everyone else is fine and nothing—”

 

As if he conjured it, a darkness settles over the moon. They all glance up to the sky and see the suns starting to cross each other, shadowing the world with nothing more than the dark side of a sun. Bellamy wonders to himself how it’s possible to have a dark side of a sun. If anything, it seems like a—

 

“Oxy moron,” he finds himself saying out loud.

 

He waits.

 

He doesn’t know why he waits, but he waits for a laugh next to him that never comes. Then something freezes inside him and it feels like he can’t breathe. It feels like—”

 

“Bellamy!” Raven calls to him and he flinches.

 

“Not now, Raven, I need to find—”

 

“You’re going to want to hear this.” She says, voice somber.

 

Bellamy knows that look. He knows Raven, he _knows_ Raven, and he knows that look.

 

Marching over to where she is, Bellamy hears a murmuring over the radio. It’s filled with static and barely understandable, but after a few seconds, he manages to wade through the chaotic noises.

 

_“—I’m so sorry, I thought that it was over, I thought that everything was gone—”_

 

The words are frantic and filled with pain and panic. It’s almost appalling that it takes him so long to figure out what’s going on. A group crowds around the noise, people clearly terrified of whoever is on the other end the radio.

 

When he figures it out, his eyes widen.

 

Raven’s stoic and reserved, but he can see the fear brewing underneath despite her best efforts to remain cold. At only point, Murphy sprints up and it takes all but three seconds for him to reach the same conclusion it took Bellamy to reach in over a minute. It’s so quick, he peers at Murphy and finds guilt.

 

 _“What do you want from me!”_ The voice screams from the radio. _“Haven’t you taken enough? Haven’t you taken everything? You’ve taken my father! You’ve taken my best friend! You’ve taken love after love, family after family. What more do you want, you son of a bitch?”_

 

“W-What the hell—” Shaw says, stepping closer. “Is that—”

 

 _“I have nothing left to give! You win! Just take me! Leave everyone else alone and take. Me! You win, is that what you want to hear?”_ The person breaks. They can all hear the sobbing, the crying, the brokenness of the person on the other end. The insanity. The fear. _“W-What more can you take? Leave them alone and just—”_

The radio crackles and short-circuits, leaving them with nothing a silence that weighs heavier than any words could.

 

Bellamy takes a moment. He takes a moment because the instant he raises his head, he has to be calm. He has to come up with a plan.

 

But he is not calm. He has no plan.

 

So he takes a second to collect himself, tears stinging his eyes.

 

When he does look up, he reaches Murphy’s gaze. Murphy can barely hold it, solidifying what he knows to be true. “Murphy,” Bellamy says, his voice so much lower than it usually is.

 

Murphy doesn’t even answer.

 

“Where’s Clarke?”

 

***

 

At one point, Clarke ended up on her back.

 

She isn’t sure when that point was, or how long she’s been here, but she’s on her back. Clarke tells herself it’s the weight – it’s the weight of everything she did, it’s the weight of her losses, of her actions. It’s so heavy, it’s hard to breathe. She can feel herself choking, she can feel her lungs not able to fill with air. In fact, it feels like they’re filling with something else, the way her coughing sounds wet.

 

But it’s all so much.

 

The radio is still in her hand. She vaguely is aware that she’s gripping it like it’s the only thing that is keeping her to his world.

 

Above her, the suns are one. They move and act as on entity, showering the whole world in darkness.

 

It is her and Death.

 

“Why won’t you take me?” Clarke asks, choking as she speaks to the master of the Universe. “Now’s your chance, you coward. The queen is vulnerable. Now’s your chance.”

 

The suns beat down on where she is, not offering any light.

 

It’s strange that this is how it ends, Clarke thinks absently. Alone, surrounded by a foreign planet, and a sun that is giving her nothing but darkness. She supposes that’s how the Commander of Death must end. Because there’s only one way the story of the Commander of Death can end:

 

Tragically.

 

“Take me,” Clarke asks Death.

 

She asks.

 

No more commanding. No more begging.

 

She asks, like someone welcoming an old friend. “Please.”

 

A figure moves close to her, a shadow hovering over. They move so that she can no longer see the eclipsed suns in the sky. The shadow puts their hands up and they’re saying something, something loud. It doesn’t sound like words.

 

Death.

 

She smiles and she can feel something drying against her lips. “You came,” she says to Death. “Are you finally going to take me?”

 

Death answers her, but she can’t make out what they’re saying, no matter how hard she tries.

 

“It’s t-time,” she chokes over something. “The war is over. Let them live – let them prosper – and you can have me. You can have the Commander of Death. J-Just… just let them live.”

 

_“No!”_

 

Clarke hears _that_.

 

It’s loud and sharp. Much more forceful than she ever expected Death to be. “You w-win,” Clarke insists. “P-Please.”

 

“Absolutely _not_ , you are not doing this!” Death cries to her.

 

Except that can’t be Death.

 

It sounds… _scared_.

 

Death was never scared. Death takes and takes and—

 

“You listen to me and you listen to me right now. You are going to _hold. On._ Your fight is _not_ over, we are here and we are together. We are finally done with the end of the world and we are together. You are _not_ dying, do you hear? Do you hear me?”

 

Clarke blinks a few more times and the figure that comes to view doesn’t make sense. Death must be tricking her, Death must be playing one final move to eviscerate her.

 

The only way to save the King?

 

Sacrifice the Queen.

 

“You win, stop.” Clarke says, tears welling in her eyes. “P-Please. Take me and don’t take them. D-Don’t—”

 

Her words are stuck in her throat.

 

“Don’t take _him._ ”

 

It’s the last thing she manages to get out before the world is taken from her.

 

Death lifts her in his arms.

 

Checkmate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves!
> 
> Thank you so much for taking the time to read Chapter 1, I really appreciate it. It means so much to me, especially with everything going on. 
> 
> Thank you so much, it truly means a lot. <3

CHAPTER TWO

_By ChasetheWindTouchtheSky_

There are moments.

 

There are moments in life when it slows. When the world turns ever so-slightly more hesitant, as if it knows that someone can’t have it work at normal speed. That there’s a person who is moving in slow motion and can’t handle the general orbit of the planet.

 

So, the planet slows.

 

The planet is _slow_.

 

Bellamy holds her in his arms and she feels cold. He isn’t sure how that logically makes any sense, but she feels cold. Her arms hand loosely in his and whenever he feels the brush of skin against his, it feels like ice. He tries to look around, see any sort of optimism on anyone’s face, but he’s merely met with a grim expression that says what his darkest thoughts feel: she’s a lost cause.

 

People have told him this often about Clarke Griffin, at one point or another. That she was a lost cause – dead, not worth saving, soon to be dead. Bellamy’s heard it so many times, it doesn’t seem to be a possibility anymore. Because every time he thinks that she’s gone – that she’s lost to him – she returns. Radiant, fierce, and most importantly, alive.

 

“Please,” she whimpers, the word lost on her lips painted with black blood that he pretends not to see. “Please.”

 

It’s jolts him back to reality. It jolts the _planet_ back to reality. Suddenly, everything is moving in realtime, no longer hesitating, and he has to catch up.

 

Five seconds behind.

 

“Clarke, you keep your eyes open, do you hear me?” He says, his voice shaking. No one says anything about it. In fact, no one says anything at all. They give him this, as they’ve given him many other things throughout his life. “Please, just keep them open. You’re always going on about remaining conscious, so if you won’t listen to me, listen to yourself, dammit!”

 

Clarke peers up at him, her eyes glassy and distant. “Be the good guys,”

 

“No.” Bellamy says, his eyes widening. “Clarke, _no!_ ”

 

Without another thought, he stops and places her on the ground. Her gaze is up to the sky, unable to focus on anything. Pressing his hand against her forehead, Bellamy winces at how hot it is. It’s too hot – it’s too extreme for anyone to survive, right? Bellamy tries to push those thoughts out of his head, but he’s finding he can’t.

 

Except there’s a quick moment and she’s _looking at him_. She’s really looking at him, with full clarity, with full understanding of him. “W-What are you doing here?” She asks.

 

The confusion in her voice is almost more than he can take. Placing a gentle hand underneath her head, he pulls her into his lap because he doesn’t want whatever’s about to happen to be with her lying on the ground. Tucking Clarke close to his chest, Bellamy pushes her hair out of her face, which is sticking to her skin with sweat. “Clarke, I’m _here_.”

 

“You’re not supposed to be,” Clarke chokes and he tries to blink away any water that’s forming in his eyes. “You’re supposed to be saving Monty,”

 

Bellamy looks up, eyes wide. Everyone stands around them, frowning at her words. “Clarke,” he says. “Clarke, Monty’s—”

 

“I told you not to wait for me,” she swallows and squeezes her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I-I told you that. I-I will always put your lives before mine. P-Please, go back.”

 

When it hits Bellamy what she’s talking about, it’s as if someone stole his breath away. “Clarke, you did that,” he says, his words breaking. “You already saved us. We got into space because of you.”

 

“I told you not to stay.” Clarke says, her eyes widening. “I never wanted my life for any of you. I would not—”

 

When she coughs, the trail of blood seeping from her lips moves and Bellamy can’t remember the last time he felt so helpless. “That actually happened, Clarke.” When Bellamy says the words out loud, it’s like he’s watching the scene before him. Outside of his body – distant from reality. Watching the two of them. “That happened. You saved us and we left.”

 

Clarke blinks a few times like she’s trying to get him into focus, which occurs to Bellamy that perhaps that’s exactly what she’s doing. Then, after a few seconds of this, she’s clear. Her eyes aren’t foggy and distant. They aren’t staring at other worlds, they’re staring at _him._

 

“We never could get the timing right, huh?”

 

Bellamy almost doesn’t believe that she says it. In fact, he waits for someone else to react, but they don’t. They don’t seem surprised by her words, they don’t seem like they are as stunned as he is. All they do is watch the scene with sad eyes, as if this is how they expected their story to end.

 

“Clarke,” he starts because he wants to say something, he _needs_ to say something, but she never let him. She always made him stop, she always said that they’d meet again. “Clarke, please.”

 

Except words fail.

 

He searches. He searches for something to say to her, something that he’d tried to so many times before.

 

Here’s the thing: Bellamy never new what his life would be. When he was on the Ark, it was all about keeping his sister safe. When he was on the Ground, it was about keeping his _sister safe_. He never thought about his life in relation to anything else – that he was _worth_ anything else.

 

Then, little by little, he noticed something change. He noticed a world where his worth was more than just if he kept his baby sister hidden under the floor. More than if he kept people alive. His life was worth something because it was a life and it was _his._ It made him want things. It made him want things that he never thought he’d have a place to want. And it made him want to _be_ things.

 

“ _N-Nothing_ is happening to y-you,” he says, his words cracking and breaking like a thin sheet of ice. He’s said it before, and as much as he wanted it to be true, it was nothing more than a lie. “You can’t—”

 

“Shh,” she says, bringing her hand up to his mouth to stop the words from tumbling out. “It’s okay, Bellamy. I-It’s okay.”

 

“Stop it—” he tries to say without any waver and fails.

 

Clarke reaches up and her fingers brush against his cheek. Bellamy knows that everyone is watching, but he also feels separated from them. Like he’s living a whole other part of the world than everyone else. He reaches up and takes her hand in his, but leaves it there. For some reason, her touch grounds him, even as she slips away.

 

“Why did you do this?” He asks, mildly unhinged. “Why would you go out on your own?”

 

“You deserve,” she swallows, words thick. “Deserve so much. I had to m-make it right.”

 

He sucks in a breath. “Is _that_ what this is about?” Bellamy asks, losing it a little. “Clarke, if you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You are _forgiven_.”

 

She shakes her head slightly, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Do you know how to save the king?”

 

Bellamy isn’t expecting much, but that even less. “What?”

 

“In chess, do you know how to save the king?” She asks again, her breaths slowing. She takes a moment and raises her gaze to the sky. “The queen.” A few more tears roll down her cheeks. “I am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

 

Her eyes flutter shut.

 

***

 

_If you were a dying star, what kind of star would you be?_

 

Clarke stands up. There’s no longer any pain in her chest. Bringing her hands to her ears, she doesn’t feel the wetness of blood on her cheeks. In fact, Clarke doesn’t feel anything at in.

 

She’s where she started: empty.

 

It was all like the uneventful day. The day when she felt no longer connected to the world. The day that she finally noticed the life she’d created for herself. She tried to keep the world warm, but all she did was light herself on fire. Burn off her nerves, kill her from the inside out.

 

Until she felt nothing.

 

She feels nothing.

 

Stepping forward, Clarke realizes that she’s surrounded by stars. Stars that almost seem too perfect to be real, stars that are like the glitter of dust in her dreams. It’s the way she would’ve drawn the stars if she wasn’t stuck surrounded by them her entire life. She knows how unforgiving they can be, but in this moment, they’re beautiful

 

Stars go on forever, sprinkled under her feet and before her eyes.

 

“Hello?” She calls to the speckled void, waiting for the glitter to respond. It doesn’t. She isn’t sure why she expected it to do so, but all she sees are stars.

 

That’s when the stars start to explode.

 

***

 

By the time they reach the camp, she’d grown still. It’s a stillness that Bellamy feels in his bones and her weight is so much heavier than it had been when it started. They sprint into the Eligius ship to where the med bay is, seeing Abby crouched over Madi, injecting something in her arm and cursing quietly to herself. Jackson is on the other side, his hands up as life he wants to do something to help, but isn’t sure what that might be.

 

“Abby,” Bellamy manages to find his voice and the woman doesn’t look up.

 

“Not now, I need to find a way to stop this bleeding. I don’t understand—”

 

“Abby.”

 

When he says it the second time, he knows what it sounds like. It sounds heartbroken, filled with despair. Everything that he’s feeling comes out in that one word.

 

It makes her look up.

 

Abby turns her attention to where he’s standing, her gaze landing on the figure in his arms. “No,” she breathes, straightening and all but sprinting over to where she is. “No, what is going on, I don’t understand—”

 

Bellamy helps Abby put  Clarke on the table next to Madi, the two of them lying stiller than he’s ever seen.

 

It’s a horrific sight. The two of them on the metal slabs, blood dripping from their noses and ears. Still.

 

It’s the nightmare he had again and again after Praimfaya. It’s exactly how he thought he left her. Dying, afraid, and most importantly, alone.

 

“What do we do?” Someone asks and it takes Bellamy a second to realize it’s Murphy. Murphy takes a few steps forward so that he’s in line with the man, eyes wide at where they lay. “What do we do to stop it?”

 

“If I knew that, don’t you think I’d be doing it right now?” Abby cries, her voice cracking and breaking. Her eyes are darting around, like she’s looking for something, _wanting_ something and Bellamy knows that if this goes the way it’s headed, it will break her. Whatever pieces Clarke was able to tape back together, they will fall apart. “I-I don’t even know what’s causing it – if I don’t know what’s causing it, I can’t—”

 

“Let’s look at the facts,” Jackson cuts her off, casting Bellamy a worried look. “The only two affected are the nightbloods. It’s something to do with their blood and the solar eclipse, right? That’s when this happened? The solar eclipse?”

 

Bellamy can’t stop staring. He knows he should be brainstorming a solution, he knows that he should be helping in some other way, but he can’t stop looking at her.

 

Now, that isn’t new. Even when he wasn’t supposed to be looking at her, he was looking at Clarke. He never met someone so full of fire and despair all at once. Someone willing to be swallowed by the world at a moment’s notice, and then steel herself for the onslaught of the consequences.

 

In short, she is _radiant_.

 

“Are they going to die?”

 

The question is out of his mouth before he can stop it.

 

Bellamy knows that everyone is wondering the same thing. They’re wondering if Abby will be the last of the Griffins. Out of the three left, Bellamy is certain that no one would’ve predicted that.

 

When he asks, Abby flinches as though he’s slapped her. He knows there was a more tactful way of asking, but also knows he can’t find it right now. There’s no time for tact.

 

“I-I don’t know.” Abby states, pulling her stethoscope from around her neck. “They’re both still breathing, but… their vitals are—” Abby runs the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a streak of black blood that she doesn’t notice. “I don’t know if this will pass or if—”

 

Bellamy looks to the ground.

 

“So there’s _nothing_ you can do?” Murphy asks, his words as wild as he was when they got to the Ground. “You’re just going to give up?”

 

“Like hell I am,” Abby snaps at him. “And if you question me again, I’ll have you removed.”

 

“I just—”

 

“What was she doing out there, Murphy?” Bellamy asks, his voice low. “Why was she even there?”

 

“What does that matter?” Murphy snaps. “There’s nothing we could’ve done to stop it anyways!”

 

“I don’t care!” Bellamy shouts and the whole room settles into silence. “I don’t care that it wouldn’t have mattered if she was here or in the woods, why was she there in the first place?”

 

“You know why!”

 

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking!” Bellamy shouts, curling his hands into fists. It’s an anger that he hasn’t felt in a while. It shoots up his spine and makes him cock his arm back, ready to throw a swing in Murphy’s direction. Murphy seems ready, instinctively putting his arms up for the punch that never comes. Bellamy looks at his fist and sighs. “Because instead of being in the woods, dying and alone, she would’ve been surrounded by people. She didn’t have to be alone. Do you hear me, Murphy? She didn’t have to _die alone!_ ”

 

When the words come tumbling out of his mouth, everyone stills.

 

Murphy lowers his hands, peering at Bellamy. “This isn’t Praimfaya, Bellamy.”

 

“I know that—”

 

“It’s not the same. We didn’t leave her to die, she _chose_ to leave to try and make it so we weren’t risking our lives on a foreign planet that could kill us.”

 

“So you thought it would be okay if it killed her?”

 

“Of course I didn’t think it was okay! Of fucking course I didn’t think it was okay! I told her that if this happened – if she didn’t make it back, I—” Murphy cuts himself off, running his fingers through his hair as he settles. “I told I wouldn’t forgive her if this happened. She left because no one can forgive her for trying to keep her daughter alive. And the last thing she heard me say is that if she didn’t come back, I’d hate her for the rest of my life.”

 

Murphy huffs a broken laugh and puts his hands up. “So if you want to swing, just fucking swing. Because who says that? Who says that to someone who already offered their life to you so many times? So say what you gotta say. Swing if you gotta swing. I’ve got no defense.”

 

Bellamy continues to glare at him, but he feels the rage seeping out of him. Lowering his arm, he lets out a breath. His chin trembles as he tries to keep it together.

 

He held himself together on the way here. He held Clarke close to his chest, closer than he ever held her, and it was like she kept him together. She bandaged him together one last time.

 

Now she was on the table away from him, only getting further away.

 

The bandages fell off.

 

He sucks in a breath, but another heaves immediately after it. The world grows blurry and it takes him a while to realize it’s because of tears. There’s a broken noise and it’s coming from him. He feels himself fall apart.

 

He feels it in his soul.

 

It’s like an avalanche. Pieces chip away and tumble down to the ground. Then more pieces. And more.

 

He’s no longer ready to fight.

 

You can’t fight if you can’t stand.

 

***

 

There are bodies under her feet.

 

The stars are long gone and Clarke is surrounded by the putrid stench of people she’s erased from the world. Clarke is trying not to stand on them, she’s trying to work her way around them, but she can’t. They’re stacked on top of each other, arms and legs tangled into an unmovable mass before her.

 

Clarke finds that it’s hard to breath. It’s like she’s choking up her blood again, but it’s no longer there. She can’t see it, but she can _feel_ it. “I-I’m sorry,” she cries into the room of her nightmares. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t want to—” Hands clasping around her throat, she tries to will her to breathe. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

 

_If you were a star, what kind of star would you be?_

 

Clarke was doing her best to be the star that slowly fizzles out. The star that leaves no damage. The star that is nothing more than a rock that drifts in the Universe, soon to be forgotten.

 

With the bodies surrounding her, she knows that it was never a possibility. She chokes with the death she’s caused, with the pain that has been delivered from her hands, that seeped into her skin and suffocated her.

 

“Clarke,” a voice says behind her.

 

When she turns, Clarke stills.

 

“Dad?”

 

***

 

After a while, no one speaks.

 

There really isn’t much to say.

 

As much as they can scream about how unfair it is, how unfair it would be to take the only two survivors of Praimfaya, no one has to. They know it’s unfair. It’s almost thematic in a way. The thing that kept them alive on earth is what is killing them on this new world. Abby sits at the base of Clarke’s feet, gripping them as if the simple action would keep her in the world. They’ve scooted the tables close to each other so perhaps the group can pretend that the two are merely sleeping. Gaia sits at Madi’s head and there are many who are too afraid to come into the room.

 

“If we were the snakes in Eden,” Diyoza says distantly in the crowd. “What would that make them?”

 

Bellamy can’t bring himself to answer, and no one else tries. “She lit herself on fire for us. And yes, we weren’t on the same side always. But…” Bellamy runs his hand down his face. “I just—”

 

He doesn’t need to say it because everyone already knows. Maybe they knew before he did. Maybe they didn’t. But what he knows is that there’s a part of him that was missing, the moment he set her on the table. “There isn’t anything you can do?”

 

Abby squeezes her eyes shut as she holds onto Clarke’s feet. There’s an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

 

Bellamy swallows.

 

Ignoring the gazes from everyone around him, he puts his arms underneath Clarke’s back and lifts her slightly. Abby startles and opens her mouth to say something, but when Bellamy slides onto the table himself and pulls her into his lap, he gently places her head against his chest.

 

Bellamy remember the first time his gaze of Clarke changed. In the woods, at the feet of a dying boy. She took the knife out of Atom’s hand and she did what he couldn’t do. The first time she bore it, so someone didn’t have to. He remembers how soft her voice was as she sang to him and the peace that was on his face when she did it.

 

Placing his hand on the side of her face to hold her close, he uses the other to hold her hand. “ _My Aretousa – did you hear / the oh so dreary tidings,”_ he sings softly. It doesn’t matter how quiet he sings, he knows that everyone can hear it. “ _Your sire has deported me / in far lands to be hiding._ ”

 

He remembers singing it to Octavia when they were younger, whenever she wanted to hear about a love story. It was the only song and story he knew at the time, having scrubbed through the archives on the Ark as much as possible. He never meant to read the entire story of _Erotokritos_ , but it made him pause. She dreamt of that sort of big love. It made sense to him. The girl under the floor dreaming for something that spans lifetimes.

 

Bellamy never presumed to have a big love. He knew it wasn’t in the cards for him. There were people who achieved that greatness and then there were those who didn’t.

 

But now?

 

Now he holds her in his hands and he wonders if he had it for years and spent so much time pretending it wasn’t there, that he lost it in the end anyways.

 

Dipping his head to touch her forehead with his, he continues, “ _And how can I break up with you / and how can I start running_ ,” He continues, his tune breaking. “ _And how can without you I live / the separation…”_ He breaks on the word. Licking his lips, he tries again. _“The separation coming.”_

 

The rest of the song falls from his mind as he holds her close, his shoulders shaking. “Please, Clarke,” he whispers to her. “You aren’t alone. I know you’ve always felt that, but you’re not alone. Come back. C-Come back, please.”

 

“Come back to me.”

 

***

 

Clarke is separated from her dad by all the bodies.

 

She sees him standing feet away and she can’t get to him. There’s too much – too many bodies, too much distance between them. Clarke looks at her father and she’s _ashamed_. He can see all the death she delivered around the world. He can _see_ who she became. Bodies pilling up around her until it suffocated an entire planet.

 

“Clarke, what are you doing here?” He asks, shaking his head sadly.

 

Clarke tries to keep herself together, but she’s falling apart. She’s a star, and she’s collapsing, ready to take everything down around with her. She’s turning into the black hole she was always destined to be.

 

She was supposed to be making up for all of this. She was supposed to be atoning for her actions on earth, and yet here everything is as piled up as it ever was. Some of the faces, she knows. She can recognize. Their eyes are open and they’re all staring at her. Some are covered in blisters and scars from radiation, others are burned alive.

 

“I tried, Dad,” Clarke says, her lip trembling. “I tried to be the good guy. I’m so sorry.” Squeezing her eyes shut, Clarke places her hands against her forehead and wishes that it would be over.

 

Death is toying with her. He finally had the upper hand. He controlled the board. The queen is dead. And now he’s taunting her as he takes the remaining pieces.

 

“I-I’m sorry, Dad,” Clarke weeps. “I’m so sorry I’ve betrayed you. Betrayed everything you stood for. E-Everyone was just always looking to me and it was too h-hard. I’m scared all the time and I can’t make up for what I’ve done.”

 

“Oh Clarke,” Jake says, his voice dipped in sadness. “You did the best you could with an impossible hand.”

 

“I am the _bad guy!”_ Clarke screams, because he’s not getting it. She gestures at the bodies all around her, because there’s no way he can’t see it. Her crimes are quite literally at his feet. All her shame, everything she’s done wrong is built between them, bricks into a wall to separate her from the world. “Don’t you see? Don’t you see what I’ve done?”

 

“Clarke, we’re here again, having this same conversation.” He says, his expression sad. “Have you not learned? You have to learn forgiveness—”

 

“I forgave Mom! I forgive and I forgive—”

 

“ _Yourself_ , Clarke.” Jake states. “I’m talking about forgiving yourself.”

 

“Don’t you understand, I don’t deserve _any_ forgiveness!”

 

“Don’t you, Clarke?” Jake asks quietly. “Forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve.”

 

“I—” Clarke tries to argue with him, but he isn’t getting it. It occurs to her that he may not be able to see them.

 

They’re all _staring_ at her. Every life she took.

 

Moving forward, Clarke shuts a set of eyes. And another. And another. She starts to shut them because they’re staring at her and it’s making her fall to pieces. She closes them and feels the sticky coldness of their skin as she does so.

 

After a while, she feels a hand on top of hers as she closes another set. Her father is reaching over the bodies, helping her shut another set. She stares at him, unable to understand any of this. “Why are you here?” She breathes, hands dropping to her side.

 

“Why are you?”

 

The two stand close, but still separated by everything she’s ever done. The weight that pulls her down and hangs off of her. That separates her from the rest of the world by rivers of blood and valleys of carnage.

 

There’s a crackling noise.

 

It startles Clarke out of her gaze, and she realizes something heavy weighs in her hand. Holding it up, there’s a radio.

 

Clarke remembers talk to the radio. She remembers talking into the radio again and again, greeted to nothing but silence.

 

She’s never had anyone respond.

 

The radio crackles a few more times and there’s something on the other side. A soft tune. Words she can’t make out, but there’s something in the voice that comforts her. It’s as if there’s someone next to her.

 

When she turns back to her father, the bodies separating them are replaced by stars once more. Clarke’s afraid to move, though. She’s afraid to wade where the bodies once were. She’s afraid to hold her father, so she holds the radio, tears welling in her eyes.

 

The singing stops after a while. It breaks away, pained and broken. It’s an awful noise. A noise that she’ll carry with her forever. It’s the noise hearts make when they break and worlds make when they die.

 

_“Come back to me.”_

 

Jake makes a soft noise.

 

“Looks like someone finally got back to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Yes… I am that ho – I made it into a 3-parter because I was feeling myself wanting to wrap up immediately, which would rush the ending. And whenever I feel like that, I know I have to break it up, because I will rush and it won’t be as good as I hope.
> 
> Who here likes heavy handed metaphors for walls built by trauma? Call backs to Season 1? Radio Call Metaphors? Lindsey going way too far with angst?
> 
> I would like to personally thank the Salt Squad for helping me with angsty songs, that really drove this chapter and made me cry. And I added Jake because of the general rumors, as well as I thought it’d be a nice bookend from the first time she hallucinated him – about forgiving her mother. And now offering that advice to herself.
> 
> And Bellamy holding a dying Clarke while he sings because that’s how she made Atom feel better? You’re welcome.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. So much love to you all <3 <3 <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi loves!
> 
> This is it! Thanks so much for dealing with so many more chapters than I originally intended, you have no idea how much writing this has been therapeutic for me. So thank you for joining me in this ride.
> 
> Also, remember I wrote this before I saw any of the S6, so the phone conversation in this world hasn’t happened. Yet. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy the conclusion. So much love <3 <3 <3

ATONE: PART THREE

 

No one says anything.

 

Really, what's there to say?

 

They don't approach him, mainly because he probably looks like a cross between a feral animal and a reaper, and if Bellamy's being honest, it may be accurate. He brushes Clarke's hair out of her face, turning around to where people still stand, staring at him as if  _he's_  the one who's crazy. Maybe he is. Maybe after all this time, he has officially lost his touch with reality. But frankly? It's because reality sucks. 

 

"Can I have a towel?" He asks.

 

The words are raw. It doesn't even sound like him. It sounds like him if he were a shadow, wasting away on the world. Then again, maybe that's what he sounds like. 

 

Someone hands him one and he doesn't even offer a thank you. Why would he? Thank someone for being present in this moment? 

 

Taking the towel, he runs it down her face to remove the blood. It's hard to look at, the blood caking her face. He has to get rid of it because he can't see her like this in her last moments.

 

On the Ark, Bellamy thought about Clarke a lot. He thought about her in life… and in death. It was a sense of small, horrible, sweet, guilty relief that he never had to watch her die. Bellamy thought about it a lot – he thought about Clarke catching fire, he thought about the acid rain, the wave of flames, the radiation. He imagined Clarke dying in a thousand ways with a thousand reasons why he caused it.

 

Yet.

 

He didn’t have to _watch_ it.

 

Abby’s over by Madi. She’s sitting in between the two, hands splayed out like she wants to will her own life into the two of them. Of course, it doesn’t happen. Instead, all Bellamy is able to feel is the weight.

 

Madi sucks in a breath, choking and shooting upright. Her eyes are wide and she makes a noise that Bellamy wishes to never hear again. Abby removes the stethoscope from around her neck and presses it against the child’s chest. “You alright?” She asks softly.

 

“I think so,” Madi says, carefully hoisting herself upright. “I don’t feel as bad as I did.”

 

Bellamy stares at the kid, then back at Clarke. “Okay,” he says, his voice rough. “It’s your turn.”

 

She doesn’t respond.

 

“Is Clarke okay?” Madi asks, twisting as Abby tries to examine her. “Why isn’t she awake?”

 

Abby places her hands gently on her shoulder. “Madi, I need you to stay still.”

 

“But—”

 

“Madi, I need to be able to focus on you, _please_.”

 

The emotion in the woman’s voice was enough to make Madi stop struggling. The girl moves her feet to the table and sits patiently.

 

Bellamy keeps her in the corner of his eye, watching Abby make sure everything it alright. He doesn’t move, though. He wants Clarke to know. He _needs_ her to know.

 

That she isn’t alone.

 

When she wakes up, that she isn’t alone.

 

Except minutes pass. Then an hour.

 

At one point time becomes nothing more than a concept. Something he’s read about. Something that pass through, but halts before ever entering this chamber. He brushes her hair out of her face, but her eyes remain closed. “It’s your turn, Clarke.” Bellamy says quietly. “Come on, it’s your turn. Come _on_.”

 

She still doesn’t answer.

 

Bellamy knows he can’t break down. He knows he can’t show anything on his face because Madi’s sitting right there and he’s not going to be the person to break Madi’s heart. He promised Clarke. He didn’t keep his promise then, but he’ll keep it now.

 

He doesn’t move though. Instead he sits there, watching Madi get deemed healthy. As soon as Abby does so, the girl hops down from the table and rushes to where he is with Clarke. “Why isn’t she waking up?” Madi asks. “I woke up, why isn’t she waking up?”

 

“I—” Bellamy starts. He considers lying to the girl, because he’s lying to himself and doesn’t want to say the truth out loud. “I don’t know.” He answers.

 

Because it’s true. He doesn’t know why. And yet the facts are still in front of them.

 

“What can we—”

 

“Why don’t we give her a moment?” Abby asks, putting a hand on Madi’s back. “Why don’t we give her a moment to regroup and some air. If I know anything about Clarke, she won’t do something if she hasn’t prepared for it.” Bellamy opens his mouth to argue that there’s no way he’s leaving, but Abby cuts him off. “Would you mind staying here with her? That way if anything happens, you can come grab me immediately?”

 

Bellamy’s eyes widen and he knows they’re watering. He nods, holding her tighter as if someone might take her away.

 

He barely hears everyone leave. They do, though.

 

Soon, it’s just him and Clarke.

 

It was always just him and Clarke.

 

Bellamy isn’t sure why it took him so long to realize. Why do you have to lose things to appreciate them? Why is it that things must fall from your grasp for you to finally realize the hole it leaves within you?

 

“It’s okay,” Bellamy says quietly. He continues to hold her close. “It’s okay if you need to go. I never forgave you for leaving. Any of the times. After Mt. Weather. After Praimfaya. It wasn’t even your fault. It wasn’t your fault that you had to leave to heal. That you stayed to make sure we lived. But I never forgave. I-I couldn’t. I couldn’t forgive you for leaving. I couldn’t…” Bellamy trails off, licking his lips. “I didn’t know how to forgive you for leaving me. You left me and I—”

 

Bellamy takes a shaking breath. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t forgive you. But if you need that now, you’re forgiven, okay. It’s okay if you need to leave. If you need to leave, I forgive you. You can go, Clarke.” Resting his forehead on hers, Bellamy tries to keep himself from falling apart, but fails. “You can go this time. It’s okay. I won’t be mad. You can leave.”

 

They stay like that for a while.

 

Bellamy isn’t sure when he should leave. There’s no sign. He knows he can’t stay here forever, but he wants to. Because if he doesn’t leave this bubble, there will be no end. He’s not ready for an end.

 

“What if I don’t want to leave?”

 

The words are so soft, he thinks he mishears it. Jerking his face down, he sees a set of blue eyes hazily blink at him. “What if I don’t want to go this time?”

 

“Oh, _Clarke.”_ Bellamy breathes and without thinking, he brings her up and wraps his arms around her shoulders, holding her close. He feels Clarke rest her cheek against his shoulder and sigh. His hand finds the back of her hair and he buries it in her hair. He holds her close.

 

It’s not close enough.

 

He’s afraid of hurting her, but she doesn’t seem to mind him holding her the way he does. After a while, one of her hands come up on his back and he can feel her fingers grip his shirt.

 

The two don’t say anything for a while. He doesn’t need her to. Perhaps she doesn’t need to either. What he does know is this:

 

This is enough.

 

***

 

The next days that pass include the following things: Clarke is watched like a hawk. She knows she’s now considered a flight risk. She knows that no one trusts her to be alone. No one trusts her in any other way, but now they don’t trust her to be by herself as well.

 

Also, Murphy’s added to the list of people who are outwardly angry with her. She knew it would happen, but wished it wouldn’t. He told her. He told her he would hate her. Sometimes the Universe has a different plan than what she expects. And binary suns with radiation that cause side effects of nightbloods was not something she expected.

 

The last thing that happens is that suddenly Bellamy is around her. Like, _all the time_. She knows he doesn’t trust her with herself either. They don’t talk about it, but he’s there. Always.

 

On this particular day, Clarke is sitting on rock, fiddling with a couple threads she’s trying to weave together. She can sense Bellamy a few yards away, eyes on her. Eyes always on her.

 

“You have a shadow.” Someone says, sitting down next to her.

 

Murphy joins her on the rock she’s sitting on, not looking at her. His jaw is tight and his arms are across his chest. “You know, you should tell him that he doesn’t have to be around you every waking second. He won’t listen, but you should say it. Because I’ve been trying to get you alone for days now, and every second I look, there he is.”

 

Clarke sighs, focusing on her fingers. It’s helpful, when she feels out of control. To focus on her hands. It grounds her. Because it reminds her that she’s here. That she’s alive.

 

Maybe that’s enough.

 

Moments of memories. Where being alive doesn’t feel like the worst thing. That being alive seems like a light at the end of the tunnel. That it was the answer, not the problem.

 

Being alive is the answer.

 

Sometimes, she knows this. Sometimes, it alludes her.

 

So she focuses on her hands. And reminds her of the answer she fought so hard for.

 

“So you not talking to me now too?” Murphy asks. “That makes another person. I didn’t realize how much I relied on all your obnoxious personalities to stay sane. No one’s called me an asshole in three days, I’m starting to lose my sense of self.”

 

Clarke bows her head. “I-I’m sorry.” Clarke says, her mouth dry. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

 

“Yeah, well, you should be.” Murphy snaps. “I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe did that to everyone. It was stupid, it was selfish, it was completely—” He sighs.

 

Clarke doesn’t fight back. She knows she has no words that could make up for it. She didn’t think going into the forest was a solution to her despair, but maybe it was. Clarke was always better off alone. It’s what she knows – it’s what she always did. Clarke knew how to be alone.

 

She didn’t know how to be this.

 

Someone with someone.

 

“And I let you do it.” Murphy finishes.

 

“You didn’t let me do anything.” Clarke says. “I would’ve gone anyway. I’m glad you knew. I’m sorry I put that on you. It wasn’t fair.”

 

“You’re damn right it wasn’t fair!” Murphy shouts. “You put that on me! I told you it was a bad idea, but you put that on me!” He sucks in a breath. “I—” He sets himself. “Bellamy wasn’t the only one who was hurt after Praimfaya.” He says carefully. “He wasn’t the only one who felt messed—” Murphy continues to look decidedly forward. “I’m just saying, everyone expects me not to care. I’m just saying…. He wasn’t the only one.”

 

Clarke stares at him. She stops fiddling with the twine in her hands. Without thinking about it too much, she reaches out and grabs his hand. “I’m sorry,” Clarke says. “I’m sorry no one sees it when you’re hurting.”

 

“Emori does.” Murphy says with a slight smile. “She was the first person who ever saw me. Like, really saw me, you know? I have someone, when I feel alone. Do you?” He finally turns to her. “Do you?”

 

Clarke feels her eyes water. “I don’t know.” She says, her words shaking. They sound small. Tiny. Broken. “I-I don’t know.”

 

“Come on, Clarke.” Murphy says with a laugh. “You know. You always know. You _know_.”

 

Clarke casts a glance over her shoulder. He’s not even trying to be subtle. He’s directly staring at the two of them without any shame. It looks as if he’s trying to decide whether he needs to come over to him. It probably doesn’t help that the two of them are staring directly at him.

 

The turn back forward.

 

“You know, Clarke. You’re just choosing not to see it.” Murphy laughs. “You are many things, but an idiot is not one of them Clarke Griffin. Stop choosing not to see it. Because it doesn’t make you a martyr. It makes you a masochist. And a sadist, because it affects him too. There’s a simple answer to this problem. Don’t pretend to be stupid.”

 

“It’s not my decision to make. It’s not the ending I deserve.”

 

“And what ending do you deserve, huh? To die alone in the woods?” Murphy snorts. “You’ve been out here spouting ‘be like what Monty said, this is our second chance, be the good guys.’ Why do you think you’re special? That it doesn’t pertain to you?”

 

“Murphy—”

 

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t tell us that we need to start over, that we have to be the good guys, and then decide you’re going to the woods to die. You dying isn’t the solution. Because it won’t just hurt you. It won’t hurt you at all. It’ll hurt everyone else. And you dying is not the revenge you want.”

 

“I’m not looking for revenge—”

 

“I know you’re not. But it isn’t the end of your story. It’s _not_ the end of your story.” Murphy says. “Because fuck you Clarke, I’m not giving you this. That is definitely the _last_ time I listen to you. Every time I listen to you, I just get a world of trouble. You may save a lot of people, but you cause all sorts of issues.”

 

He laughs and nudges her shoulders. “This is not the end of your story, Clarke. Not dying alone in the woods.”

 

“Then what is the end of my story, Murphy?” Clarke asks.

 

“Well,” Murphy squeezes her hand. “Not to use this opportunity to make fun of Bellamy, but whatever the hell you want.”

 

“Oh my god, go to hell, Murphy.” Clarke accidentally barks out a laugh.

 

“There you are.” Murphy says with a laugh. “If I’m going to hell, I suppose I will see you there.”

 

“Yeah,” Clarke says with a nod. “I guess you will.”

 

He squeezes her hand tightly.

 

***

 

There’s this thing the suns do when they set on Sanctum. They fall at the horizon as Bellamy always saw earth’s sun do. But there was a moment that when the suns hit each other when the entire moon is showered with gold. Like, El Dorado gold. Gold that he never saw before – that he used to read about.

 

It was a breathtaking kind of gold. It was Bellamy’s favorite time of the day.

 

So, on this particular morning, he finds himself sitting on the edge of a cliff, his feet dangling over a body of water, watching the gold. It’s quiet. His loud mind has an opportunity to breathe – to think. Luxuries that he never really had in his life on the Ground.

 

“This seat taken?” A voice asks when a shadow steps up next to him.

 

Bellamy looks up to see Clarke standing next to him, looking down and smiling in that soft way that he felt like was only for him. He knows he’s not allowed to feel a certain way about – but he’s never been great about following rules when he felt strongly against them. She offers him a cup in her hands with the words, “I believe I owe you a drink.”

 

“Clarke, it’s sunrise. We’re not pulling Murphy drinking hours.”

 

That gets a laugh out of her – one of the rare Clarke laughs that time cushions with too much of itself. “It’s coffee.” She says, sitting down next to him, her feet dangling off the cliff with him. They swing gently in the air. It may be the most childish thing he’s ever seen Clarke do, but he can’t help but be mesmerized by it. “I didn’t think the hard stuff would be the best idea to start the day.”

 

“As usual, you always are thinking ahead.” Bellamy laughs, bringing the cup close. He holds the cup close to his chest, feeling the warmth to his palm. “It seems unreal, sometimes.”

 

“That we could be on a planet and safe?” Clarke takes a sip of her own coffee. “Yeah,” she breathes softly.

 

The two sit in silence. A silence that is comfortable, like something he didn’t know was missing until it was back. Bellamy is comfortable with silences, he really is. But only silences with certain people. Silences with some people are awkward. He feels the need to fill them with some people, but he doesn’t need to with her.

 

The world is showered with gold.

 

But he’s staring at her. Dangle her feet. “So here we are again. Are you afraid?” Bellamy asks. He asks because he is. He is _afraid_.

 

He’s been afraid since he carried her out of the forest. He’s been afraid since he held her in his arms and she didn’t move. He’s been afraid since she woke up and said she didn’t want to leave.

 

Bellamy is _afraid._

 

Mainly because he knows how quickly things change. How they can be good one moment, and then gone the next. He knows. Bellamy _knows_. He knows how quickly things change. So he’s afraid to talk to her, he’s afraid to not talk to her, he’s just _afraid_.

 

“Always,” Clarke responds, gripping her coffee cup until her knuckles are white. “I’m always afraid. I’ve been afraid since we landed on the ground. You wouldn’t be smart if you weren’t afraid.”

 

Bellamy looks at his coffee cup. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

 

He doesn’t know what to say. It’s very rare that he doesn’t know what to say to Clarke, but he doesn’t know what to say.

 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says suddenly. “I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through. Everything I’ve put you through.” Clarke’s lower lip trembles. “I don’t even know why you’re here.” Her words go up an octave higher than normal and crack. “I can’t believe you’re still here.”

 

Clarke covers her face with her hand, bowing her head. “I don’t know why you’re still here. Why you’re always _here_. Why don’t you hate me, Bellamy? Why don’t you _hate_ me?”

 

Bellamy sucks in a breath.

 

Everyone’s been so careful with what they say, but here she is, throwing rocks. Standing in a pool of glass, waiting for what happens. Waiting for what he’ll do.

 

“Come on, Clarke.” Bellamy chokes out. “I could never hate you.” He laughs. “Even when I wanted to hate you, I could never hate you. I-I—” Bellamy bows his head. “I didn’t expect any of this. I just wanted to make sure my sister was okay. I did anything for her. I thought my entire life was Octavia. I just wanted to make sure Octavia survived on the Ground. I never expected you.”

 

“I never expected you.” Clarke says quietly. “I was so focused on keeping us all alive, I didn’t expect you. Yet you were there and you were constantly yelling and challenging me. You were really a pain in the ass, you know that right?”

 

Bellamy can’t help it – he laughs. “I vaguely remember you saying you didn’t like me very much.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Clarke smiles to herself. “It was easier to dislike the hot guy who was causing me so many problems than it was to like him.”

 

“Hot?” Bellamy asks, blinking. “You thought I was hot?”

 

Clarke shakes her head. “Oh – that’s not what I meant—”

 

“The truth comes out after all this time.” Bellamy jokes. “You were checking me out.”

 

“You had your shirt off constantly!” Clarke exclaims. “You wanted people to check you out!”

 

He can’t help it, he’s laughing. This whole situation is too ridiculous. They aren’t teenagers anymore – this shouldn’t feel like he’s back in school. But suddenly he’s wondering if she means to put her hand close to him. Wondering what it all meant. If everything they’ve been through has been leading to this moment.

 

Clarke sets her coffee aside, long since steaming. “I thought it would be a way to make up for everything. You know? I thought if I could find the answer for you guys, you wouldn’t have to risk your lives. I thought that it would…”

 

“Make things right?”

 

“Make things better!” Clarke exclaims. She blinks a few tears away. “I just wanted to make things better.”

 

“Everyone made mistakes. We _all_ made mistakes. Do you think you’re the only one?” Bellamy asks. “Do you really think it’s only your sins?”

 

“They feel like the only ones.” Clarke says quietly.

 

“Because they’re yours. But I feel mine and everyone else feels theirs. Your sins are heavy because you feel them. Not because you’re the only one who sinned.” Bellamy says. He pulls his leg up so that he can turn toward her. “How could you go out alone again? Who did you think that would benefit? Madi? Your mom?” He pauses, biting his lip.

 

It’s one of those moments.

 

The moment when everything changes.

 

“Me?” Bellamy asks, unable to look at her. “Do you think I would be better without you here?”

 

“Wouldn’t you?” Clarke asks, turning to him. There are tears in her eyes. “Wouldn’t you be better if I’m not here? Wouldn’t everyone—”

 

 _“No!”_ It came out of his mouth like an instinct. Like a reflex. He can’t even entertain the thought. “Clarke, _no_. Any anyone who is telling you otherwise is… well…” He can’t pretend not to know who is actually is saying things. “They’re wrong. And I can’t do this without you.”

 

Clarke stares. “Bellamy—”

 

“No, we were a team then and we’re a team now. I can’t do this without you. We’ve never were good apart. We’re better together. And so I’m going to be here. I’m going to be here and we’re going to get this together. Right?”

 

He waits.

 

He never would wait for Clarke. He wanted her to be comfortable, but to be safe. Now, here he is, everything out before her. And he waits.

 

Clarke can’t look at him. She was never good at this sort of thing. “I called you every day, Bellamy.” Clarke says, her words trembling. “I called you every day and then I left you. There are some sins that are too great. _My_ sins are too great.” Clarke’s feet dangle. “I called you. Because I needed to. Because every time on the Ground that I felt like it was too much, you were there. And I kept leaning on you and I continued to lean on you when you were in space. I-I don’t know how to not lean on you. When things get hard. But suddenly you were back and I couldn’t lean on you.”

 

“Why?” Bellamy asks. “Why can’t you lean on me?”

 

“Because you’re—” Clarke stops herself. “We can’t be what we were. There’s too much…”

 

“Space?” Bellamy asks.

 

It’s almost absurd.

 

He had enough space. He lived in space for almost his entire life.

 

He’s had enough of space for his lifetime.

 

So Bellamy makes a choice.

 

Reaching out, Bellamy grabs the back of her head and tangles his fingers in her hair. Once again. Except this time, he doesn’t hold her to him to make sure she’s alive. He holds her _because_ their alive and he’s tired of _space_. Pressing his lips against hers, Bellamy pulls her close. She hesitates only for a second and he feels like he needs to stop, but then she responds. Wrapping her hands around the collar of his jacket, she brings him even closer.

 

He doesn’t know how it’s possible. For two people to be as close as they are. To inhabit the same space. That’s scientifically not possible, right?

 

But he feels like they are. It’s like the suns are eclipsing again, but this time he’s there and he’s showered in the sunlight.

 

When they break free, Clarke shakes her head, “I don’t deserve—”

 

“What?” Bellamy breathes, putting his forehead against hers. “This? Us? Me?”

 

“All of it.”

 

“I severely beg to differ.” Bellamy says, cupping her face in his hands. “Monty gave us a second chance. Which means _we_ have a second chance. Why don’t you want that?”

 

“I want it _too much_.” Clarke says, pulling his hands off of her face. “I want it so much, I think I might explode.”

 

“Then why won’t you—”

 

“Finn died, Bellamy! Lexa _died_. Everyone I’ve ever loved has _died_. I am not going to be the cause of your death, Bellamy Blake. I will _not_ be the cause of your death.”

 

“You think that you pushing me away again is what I want?” Bellamy asks. “Because I experienced with life without you and I gotta tell you Clarke, I did not care for it.”

 

He returns his hand to the side of her face. “If you need forgiveness, I’ll give it to you. You. Are. Forgiven.”

 

Clarke’s lower lip trembles. She shakes her head as if she’s trying to disagree, but he won’t let her. He. Won’t. Let. Her.

 

Then there’s a sob.

 

And another.

 

And another.

 

Before he knows it, Clarke is sobbing. Full sobbing. Crying in a way her never saw Clarke do. She pulls him close and weeps against his chest. He rarely sees Clarke this vulnerable. Maybe he’s the only one. Maybe he’s the only one who sees this side of her. Because she trusts him with it.

 

“I’m so sorry.” Clarke says in his shoulder.

 

“I’m not.” Bellamy says, running his hand through her hair. “You’re here. You’re here… with me.”

 

That makes her grab him harder.

 

The world is painted with gold.

 

The whole world. It’s doused like El Dorado, touched by the Hand of Midas, painted like the columns in Rome. The trees are gilded and the lake glitters.

 

But he’s looking at her.

 

The way her hair glimmers in the light, the way she holds him. There’s a poem he once read, on the Ark. _All that is gold does not glitter_.

 

 _Not all who wander are lost_.

 

She is gold and she is glittering. She wandered and she was lost.

 

They don’t have to be.

 

Maybe, for the first time. They can rest.

 

Clarke cries. Bellamy tries not to. And fails.

 

It doesn’t matter.

 

They’re not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I got a little mushy at the end. 
> 
> I don’t care, I had a lot of feelings. I need happy endings, otherwise I will perish. I need hope. Give me Bellarke Pride and Prejudice style, at the edge of the cliff, making out and working through feelings.
> 
> I’m telling myself not to write more.
> 
> Someone stop me – please!
> 
> So much love. <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Okay, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but it was getting really long and I could feel myself wanting to rush the ending. So I’ve decided to break it into two! Because I am always that bitch.
> 
> Thank you guys for reading my work. I love you dearly. <3 <3 <3


End file.
